I’ve had a day where an unintentional slight that actually worked in my favour really bothered me.

I turned up to training tonight thinking I was going to be teaching to find I wasn’t. That in itself doesn’t bother me. I always said I would teach for a 6 month block and I am aware that other people need to teach for their next level of qualification. I’d been prepared to continue on to help people out in the meantime, despite needing to up my training for upcoming tournaments. But I didn’t bring all the right gear with me, and despite being able to borrow stuff to enable me to train, it still miffed me and I’m not sure why. It certainly wasn’t an intentional slight, but despite rationalising this with myself, it bothered me all evening.

Perhaps it was the fact that I’d put time into preparing the lesson plan. I decided that I now really need to put that time into studying sources for myself. How useful would it be to read a load of rapier & dagger treatises and discover new insight for myself.

This came to the conclusion on the drive home that I need to read more in general. It’s been bothering me. What with the tournament training and the edits, time has been robbed from a few things. I don’t play as many video games as I once did, restricting myself just to World of Warcraft, and even then I’ve stopped raiding in favour of mount farming and achievement hunting. And when it comes to TV and movies, I’m so behind. As much as I love the Marvel stuff I’ve not got round to watching Luke Cage or Iron Fist and Defenders is due this week. I’m only up to date on Game of Thrones because of a concerted effort.

And I have a pile of books I want to read, but despite wanting to carve an hour out of the day for myself to just read, I find I always get to the end of the day and have run out of time. I still read a bunch of articles throughout the day and, once in a while, will get a solid hour of novel reading … but I long for a time after the edits are away that I can just block off a weekend, curl up on the sofa and read.

I always tell myself that if I’m ever fortunate enough to write fulltime, part of my daily schedule will be at least an hour reading in the morning before starting work. Until then, as much as I hate it, it gets sacrificed like everything else. In the meantime, my ‘To Be Read’ pile grows. It doesn’t help that I’m such a slow reader.

There was plenty of good stuff about today though. First, my new targa arrived. This is pentagonal small shield or buckler. I’ve wanted one of these for ages and Jay managed to source someone who did them at a 3rd of the price I’ve seen elsewhere. It’s really nice as the straight edges will aid my sword & buckler fighting by allowing me to bind with it.

I also finished consolidating the 3 chapters into 1 in Black as Knight. The word count seems reasonable for a chapter so I’m really happy to have got this piece of work done.

I now need to make some small changes to the start of the next chapter to set a few things up. A secondary character gets a mission and currently is doing that mission without having been given it, so I need to change that. I’m hoping that won’t take too long to do.

I then hope it’s going to be plain sailing to the end of the novel. There shouldn’t be any structural things (major or minor) that need doing, other than going through the prose and tightening it up. I’m interested to see how slowly or quickly that gets done but , as everyone knows, I’m really keen to get this edit complete.

It’s gone 1:30am and it looks like I’m going to have to leave finishing editing this consolidated chapter until tomorrow.

I can’t complain though as progress, whilst slow, has been good. I’m still being quite ruthless, and seem to be succeeding in my aim of trimming the wordcount. I was helped by somehow managing to get food prepped quickly. With the focus on my macros, it’s important that I stick to the diet at the moment.

But it gave me a lot of time this evening which meant I got a lot of work done. There’s nothing quite so fantastic as feeling you’ve made excellent progress and then look at the time to see that it’s only just gone past 9pm.

My main point of contention this evening was the romance in this chapter. Because the way I edit is quite unemotional, I am worried that I may have stripped the romance out. But if editing has taught me anything it’s that you can heavily edit the words and still not lose the meaning.

Still, I think the changes I’ve made improves not only the story but the romance as well. I guess I won’t know for sure until I do the final re-read before sending to my beta readers, and that time could not come soon enough as far as I’m concerned. I still have a load of chapters to do though.

But progress on the novel meant I had time to go to the gym today… and I started a new exercise. Outside of the weight work I’m currently doing, I’ve started sword training. I’ve long been trying to work out a way to take a sword into the gym without it causing a security incident.

At the weekend I picked up a couple of boffers (foam padded swords) that handle like a sword but also don’t look real. I decided I would do some work with them at the end of my session. I used something called the Meyer Square to give me which of the 4 areas of the punch bag I’d hit, and then got to work.

I felt a bit self-conscious doing it in the gym but I’ve done enough cutting over the years to make a chained attack look pretty impressive, if only for the flow. As a result I had one girl come over and ask if I was a stuntman for something like Game of Thrones. Not sure if that’s a compliment or not (lol) but in truth, I did feel like I was a bit badass.

I also had a ton of fun doing it and my plan is to take my boffer to the gym as often as I can. A little extra cardio just won’t go amiss.

Between weighing myself last night and this morning I’ve found that I managed to drop 5kg. At least I’m losing it rather than putting it on. I just wish it wasn’t such a rollercoaster all the time.

So all in all, it’s been a pretty good day. I got a good amount of editing done even if progress seems pretty slow at the moment. And I’ve also upped my gym sessions which should help improve my cardio before the Wessex League starts. But for the next few weeks, the focus is very solidly on getting these edits complete.

With Fightcamp now over, my focus is now starting to change, so that the edits of Black as Knight once again become my main focus.

Whilst the first Wessex League tournament is a little over a month away, now the two big UK competitions of the year are over, I can make the edits my primary focus.

The swordfighting isn’t going to be forgotten though, it’ll just be something that continues more in the background for a few weeks.

Given how I thought I’d be at this stage of the year and feeling utterly frustrated, I’m really happy with my performance this year. I’ve managed quarter finals in every at least one competition of every tournament I’ve done over this year, despite losing one of my training sessions a week to teaching others.

There’s still a load of work to do. Today I start of getting my fitness back up to the level it was at the end of last year. That means being tight on the macros and not having any treats.

I also need to change my weapon focus. Astolat and Fightcamp have required me to work with a number of different weapon sets, but from here on out it’s just rapier & dagger until at least the end of the year. It’s going to be good to be focused on it now as I think it’s what I currently fight best with.

I spent most of the day recovering. I didn’t sleep well and woke feeling just as exhausted as I did when I went to bed. Both my arms hurt from injuries, and my swordarm still feels fatigued. I still went to training though. It was a beginner’s session on rapier & dagger but I believe that you always need to return to fundamentals. I found I got more out of it than even I thought I would.

We did “At the wall drills” and my defense was still as solid as always. My thrusts were a bit crap but that I put down to my sword arm fatigue. Overall, it was a good session and I felt I got a lot out of it, despite it being the day after Fightcamp.

I’d hoped to spend a lot of time today working on the edits. Now they are my focus again, I want them done. But I have a busy couple of weeks at work coming up and juggling everything is going to be the source of a little stress.

However, time I woke up, went shopping, and did a few tasks, it was time to cook my evening meal and go to training.

I did get a little work done though. I completed the second part of this consolidated chapter and moved onto the third part. What impressed me was that despite having had a weekend off and feeling tired, I seem to have retained the editing skills I’ve learnt these last few months. If anything, I’m pleased to know that no matter how exhausted I am, I’m not going to be slapdash with how I edit these remaining chapters.

I suspect that I will increase in speed as the week goes on. I’d like to have them all done by the weekend, but I’m really not sure if that’s reasonable. I don’t want to rush it, but at the same time I want it done so I can send it back. I feel I’ve had these edits for ages but with storm chasing and tournaments I’ve lost about 6 weeks.

I have a cake club task, however, to get them done by the end of the month, and currently that seems totally viable. I just hope that feels as viable at the end of the month.

My left elbow is starting to turn black after my semi-final fight on Friday, and my right forearm is equally swollen. My right arm is also feeling the aches from constantly holding a sword.

But it’s not just the injuries from fighting. I feel boiled on the inside. I break out in sweats and shivers as my body struggles to handle the fact that I don’t seem to sweat properly. The area around my eyes burns not so much with bad sunburn but a feeling as if I’d stuck that skin on a cooking ring. My stomach is a mess, and my legs are swollen.

It was totally worth it though.

Today’s first tournament was the melee. This is where 5 fighters go against another 5. It’s a bit of fun really. I nicknamed it The Hangover Games over the weekend. Whilst some teams were taking it very seriously, I was treating it as a bit of practise against longsworders. We won our first fight which amazed me more than anyone, but our second round was against the eventual winners and they kicked our arse.

I was wanting to do well in the sword & buckler today, and given everything, I was feeling in a good place mentally.

I was in a pool with Dan. Given that Fran had dropped out, it meant we were the only pool with two SOTS people in. As I said, knowing our luck, we’d double each other out and let someone else through.

The sun had come out, which was a nightmare for me. I threw my hoodie over my head and made sure I drank water constantly. I could still feel myself overheating though, even when I was judging without any swordfighting kit on. But at least I didn’t get heatstroke this time (or at least not as bad)

It seemed that all the longsworders had abandoned longsword for sword & buckler … or rather longsword and buckler. It made them difficult to fight as they were trying to do longsword technique.

I trusted in my buckler. My defence is good, I told myself. Plus, it’s one thing the longsworders having a buckler, it’s another thing using it.

I think I fought well. My head was in the fight. But I thought another fighter was doing better. If I’m annoyed at anything it was my last fight. It was against a longsworder who just came in hard. The scar across my gut is testament to that. He got in fast and low and I’d afterblow him but it meant I didn’t get a lot of points. As a result, I was pretty sure at the end I’d not got through.

I thought the other fighter who I deemed to being doing better had got it, so it was quite nice when it was Dan who ended up top. I mean, I’m gutted that I came 3rd, 1 point behind that other fighter. I’m sure if my last fight had been better I might have snuck it, or come a very close 2nd. But I was very pleased for Dan and the fact that the glory did seem to be spread amongst the whole group this weekend.

Given that Matt and Steve didn’t get through either, I didn’t feel too bad, and was 100% rooting for Dan and Dave Young (who although ex-SOTS was hanging around us all weekend)

Dan & Dave went out in the semi-finals (just like me) but Masha made it through and fought like a demon to get silver. I thought she was fighting well last Sunday but she was totally on fire today.

I was very excitable today. In part it was tiredness, partly it was to take my mind off the various aches. But I noted that along with it came an increased social anxiety. I felt I was being too loud, too annoying, maybe taking banter a bit too far. I noticed it more as the day wore on and I got more overheated and worn out. By the time I was driving home, I felt like I wanted to climb into a hole and be away from people.

Perhaps I only notice this because I’ve spent a lot of time in my own head this weekend, trying to work out my psyche and manipulate it ready for competition. Maybe I’m just tired and mentally worn down by it all. I figure a good sleep and I’ll feel a lot better.

But there’s a part of me today that feels I need to be quieter. I’ve had to do a lot to up my confidence of late and with that has come of some of the bravado. I’m just not sure if that’s annoying or fun.

I’m currently feeling like I should now scale it back, and focus on the fights at hand. I feel I’ve proved myself this weekend and shown progress.

Next week I step things up ready for the Wessex League. I do that feeling good about my fighting. A year ago, I left Fightcamp utterly frustrated at my lack of progress. This year, I leave having not only shown progress to myself but those around me as well.

I returned home to a celebratory Chinese and near total exhaustion but I plan to go to training tomorrow. Because I know that progress is made when you show up and others don’t.

I’d long made the decision that today would be a rest day. No matter how well or badly I did on Friday, I knew that competing in two competitions would mean I would be exhausted the day afterwards. And so I had a lay in, and a big breakfast, and went down to the campsite fairly late.

I’m still buzzing about yesterday. Mostly I’m buzzing that Sasha said I fought well. Praise is very rare from him (Russian feedback) and I get a sense that whilst he might have not taken my aims seriously before, he saw something in me yesterday which has finally convinced him otherwise. I wish I knew what it was. I must make a point of asking him or Matt (who also said I fought very well).

I’ve been trying to get my head into Sword & buckler for tomorrow’s Eggleton Cup competition. I’m feeling really fired up and want to take out everyone. Given I teach sword & buckler, I’d like to do well in the Eggleton Cup. I mean, I got silver at Bucklerthon but I’m starting to feel like I need to re-validate my credentials. However, given that I got my quarter-final or better place this weekend (technically twice as I finished in top 6 in backsword), hoping for lightning to strike a 3rd time is possibly hoping for too much. I’d just like to think that this is my weekend.

The others had planned to do a few seminars and whilst there was part of me that would have liked to have taken part, I was so shattered that I really just did not have the concentration to learn anything.

In many ways that’s a shame. There are so many great introductions to weapons at Fightcamp with some of the best instructors in the world and I’m genuinely too knackered to take part.

Stephen & James were busy buying weapons and ended up with a new arming sword and sabre. I was wanting to reward myself for my result with a new weapon, and so I ended up buying myself a Halberd.

Because

We went back to camp and played with it, trying to see how much force the Rotella could take. Whilst I might have thought it a dumb purchase before playing with it, it’s an awesome weapon when you do play with it. Totally worth it! You can use the axe part to claw a rotella open, the hammer to break your opponents and the spear to stab them. It’s like a Swiss multitool of death.

We then geared up and went through some sword & buckler for tomorrow. Stephen is doing rather well at the moment and James, I think, is getting a little frustrated, especially as he’s the one with a competition record. So I spent some time on his buckler defence by just wailing on him with my sword. It might not be the most controlled method, but I learnt so much from having Sasha beat me up I figured it’s genuinely going to help prepare him for tomorrow.

The evening was spent drinking. I started early and was pissed before the rest of them, but it meant that I also started sobering up such that by the time I walked home tonight, I felt relatively sober.

I also made sure I left relatively early (Midnight) so I could get a good night’s sleep. I’m feeling quite injured at the moment. My heatstroke might have subsided but my face is badly, badly burnt and I need to start getting in the habit of wearing sunblock any time I’m going to be outside for a while. My face still feels hot to the touch.

On top of this, my buckler elbow really, really hurts. In my final rapier fight, I took a cut with the middle of the blade to it. It’s now swollen up and starting to go purple. But whilst it hurts a lot, it doesn’t seem to be affected by movement, so I figure it’s not broken. At least not properly.

I hope I feel a bit better tomorrow as I need to feel more alert for my tournament. We have the melee in the morning, which whilst a bit of fun, will allow me some practise against longsworders.

But it’ll mean another 2 tournaments tomorrow that will be every bit as exhausting as yesterday.

So whilst I would have loved to have done some seminars (Steve & James said the introduction to sabre was really good, and they took me through some of the cutting exercises they learnt) I figure the sensible thing to do was to take it easy and try and recover my strength for tomorrow.

I’m at Fightcamp this weekend. It’s basically a weekend in a field with lots of people with lots of different weapons. There are a load of seminars with some of the best instructors in the world, so if you want to learn trench warfare or knife fighting, then there’s a seminar on that for you. And by seminar, I mean kitting up in armour and stabbing each other.

There are also a number of competitions, and that’s predominantly where my interest lies. With the advent of the world rankings, this is probably a less serious competition than it once although many will tell you that this has always been a more relaxed fun competition. (when I started swordfighting there was a weird glut of tournaments and Fightcamp was always seen as the thing). However, I think for people competing to win, I would say there’s no such thing as a relaxed comeptition.

But you get great fighters from clubs all across Europe and it does weapon combinations you don’t see in the more serious tournament circuit.

My first competition was the Assault at Arms. This is a backswording competition. Now the intelligent amongst you will note that I do not do backsword. For years I hated people who would come into a discipline with no knowledge and basically get by with another discipline (Such as people doing sabre in a sword & buckler competition). But in recent months my attitude has changed. If you are doing the set discipline properly you should win and the fact that someone is quicker with a different discipline is a reflection on you rather them.

And so I decided to enter the Assault at Arms and basically do single sidesword. This was my fun competition. I wasn’t trying to win, I just looked at it as a way to test myself by using my weakest discipline in a competition where that discipline was already at a slight disadvantage.

I came comfortably second in my pool which I’m really happy about as it was really nothing more than a warm up for the main event. Unfortunately, only the top person from each pool went through, but given I had single rapier coming up, I wasn’t disappointed.

I used to think single rapier was my best discipline, but with tournaments more focused on rapier & dagger I don’t do so much of it any more. Indeed, in the few weeks since Astolat, I feel like I’ve been doing it for ages, and couldn’t wait for next Monday when I’m back with the dagger. But I wanted to do well in this tournament.

A year ago, at Fightcamp, I had my tournament meltdown. It happens, and I’ve seen it happen to other fencers. You tell yourself that this is a fun competition, that sometimes it goes well, sometimes it goes bad, and then suddenly it becomes the most important competition in the world. And then you underperform, and all that frustration, anger and hurt just comes bubbling to the surface.

A year ago, I was 6 months into upping my training. I was training harder than anyone, I’d rebuilt muscle. I wanted to be one of the top fencers but whilst no-one was trying to stop me, I honestly think people respectfully believed that I wasn’t capable. I underperformed in single rapier and came so close to giving up.

So this tournament has history with me. As much as I say it doesn’t matter (it won’t improve my world rankings) I wanted to do well in this one more than anything.

We had three pools, and I was in the last one. That meant hanging around a lot and help judging. If I was impressed with anything it’s how our students are really good at judging and ended up getting involved. However, I need to learn that me being outside, even on an only partially sunny day, is a bad idea. I have no UV protection on my face and burn incredibly easy.

And I did, and basically came down with a touch of heatstroke, although I did not realise it at the time. I had a banging headache and was asked to judge but asked someone to help with scores and my head was a shambles. And then we somehow mixed up the scoring on Christophe’s and Masha’s fight. It would be bad enough if it was anyone’s but given as it was fellow students, it was doubly bad. I felt awful both physically and emotionally. I felt I’d just dicked over their chances.

But then another fighter came on (who shall remain nameless but will now forever be a dick who I will remember beating in rapier & dagger) and started taking the piss. It was totally uncalled for and completely took me off my game. My head was too busy being pissed off and upset and ill to focus on my fights.

I didn’t feel I fenced well. I was off my game. But the battle wasn’t with the other person, it was with myself, trying to regain focus, trying to turn my mental state away from feeling already defeated. I cannot tell you how most of my fights went, because I was mentally fighting with myself the entire time in an epic battle that totally dwarfed what was taking place on the field in front of me.

But somehow, I did OK. I’m not sure how, but as the fights progressed and I got a handle on my mental struggle my game improved. I ended up coming joint 2nd, and so had to go into a sudden death elimination, as the top 2 from each pool went through.

Jesus, as if this day couldn’t be any more tough: mentally out of the game, with heat stroke, and a sudden death elimination.

I do not remember that fight. I was inside my own head the entire time, trying to control my breathing, bring my head into a place where I was in the moment, not looking at the past or dreaming of the future.

I won. I do not how but I made it to the semi-finals. I made the top 6.

To say that this felt better than if I had one gold would not be a lie. I fought like I never fought to get there, and after such a tough fight and last year’s disappointment, people will probably never know JUST how much that meant to me.

Now you could say that if other fighters had been there (Pim, Jay, Stewart) had been there I might not have made it… but I’ve come to realise that my greatest challenges come from inside the school, not outside it… and we train together all the time.

I got eliminated in my semi-final by the person who eventually won. Matt said I fought really well. I don’t know. Dan videoed me fighting and Fightcamp filmed the semi-finals as well so I’ll be able to review. But even Sasha said I did well, and Sasha NEVER says people do well (Russian feedback).

So today was a massive, massive victory, but it was over myself rather than any competitor. The more I progress, the more I’m convinced that good fighting is with yourself and not with anyone else. Maybe that’s true for any competitive sport but I’m proud of my mental game today.

Best of all is seeing that facebook post that said that Matt, Sasha and myself got through to the finals. I can’t explain why that feels like such a validation. I guess fighting in a school with so many good fighters it’s easy to feel that you’re behind the pack. I suppose, in other ways, casting myself as the underdog craving that validation really fires me up.

I got very, very drunk. As I said, tonight was either going to be toasting my victory or drowning my sorrows. Tomorrow is a hangover day as I have no competitions. But on Sunday there’s the team melee (The Hangover Games as I like to call them) and then the Eggleton Cup (which I will be fighting with sword and buckler).

Given that rapier went so well (the pressure was on for me to reach a quarter final to continue the streak) if I do rubbish in Eggleton, it’ll still be a successful weekend…. but now I’m hungry. Now I’m really hungry. I want gold. I really, really want gold. Imagine what I could do without heat stroke and an off mental game.

And whilst I think that’s extremely unlikely this year so was the thought of me ever making a semi-final a year ago.

If you want to follow more of my journey, then be sure to check me on my social channels. Likewise, if you’d like me to expand on any point mentioned above, please say so in the comments.

I sometimes wonder if there’s a need to take a day off before a competition like Fightcamp. Yes, it’s a 2+ hour drive but that’s not impossible after a work day. Plus, this year I’m staying in a hotel rather than camping.

There’s part of me that thinks I wasted today. I had a chill morning and didn’t really start packing until after lunch. But in many ways I think this is exactly what I need: a way to clear my mind ready for tournament focus.

So I did little tasks and then packed. I tell you, going away for competition is worse than going storm chasing. There’s so much kit and all the time, I’m worrying that I’ll forget something vital. Considering that the equipment requirements aren’t that much different to Astolat a couple of weeks ago, and even then, with my suitcase of kit, I had about three of everything I needed.

But perhaps that’s part of the ritual – to have my panic the day before so I can then chill the rest of the day.

I stopped at Moreton in the Marsh (a place my Dad used to take us to when he was building model trains) as they had a budgens and I was hoping to pick up more of my tournament secret weapon of yogurt flapjacks. They didn’t have any, but they did have a box of normal flapjacks reduced to 44p. So I got those, but they didn’t last the rest of the journey. They pretty much didn’t last more than a couple of miles.

I found the hotel without issue and after about 50 car runs got all my kit in. I’m a couple of miles from the campsite and I had picked up some school kit for a couple of students so I made the brave (and possibly stupid) decision to carry a skibag full of swords, plus my camping chair the entire distance. If I can’t move tomorrow, it’ll be because of this.

The camp was looking a bit sorry for itself this year. A couple of people dropped out due to injury (they could have still come for the drinking) and so only James, Matt, Stephen and Dan were there. We were joined by Masha and Sasha but even then SOTS felt very light on the ground.

I still don’t know anything about any of my pools. I do know I’m not in Matt and Sasha’s rapier pool as they are in one together.

Nerves are starting to kick in. I’m seeing all these great fighters and despite knowing that I can beat them, that I (should) get a better night’s sleep and have better breakfast, I’m starting to worry.

I feel like I’m overweight (Did I really need that weight vest I bought in Tesco today, given that I seem to have put about that weight on), but then Matt, jokingly tried to push a montante into my gut. A year ago I would have folded. This year, he could push quite hard and I didn’t even flinch. Adrian got swole.

I keep telling myself that these competitions don’t matter, that these don’t impact my world rankings. But Goddammit, I’ve placed in quarter finals in my last 3 tournaments. I want at least one quarter final space. Fuck it, I want a medal.

With a lot of the top fighters not here (Pim & Jay come later today) and Sasha and Matt in another pool, I could do OK. I still worry about the backsword though. I ached all day due to doing something last night in training. It felt like my bicep had exploded. I hope it’s OK for tomorrow.

I’m too competitive to have fun. I want to win. I’ve worked hard to get where I am. But seeing as a year ago at Fightcamp, my frustration with my lack of results boiled over, at least I come here this year with nothing to prove.

But I still want to prove something: that I’m still getting better and a year ago I would have not been thought a threat.

I’m just getting started, and whilst this could be a massive success of a weekend, or an absolute train wreck… I’ve learnt to be real patient.

Bring it!

If you want to follow more of my journey, then be sure to check me on my social channels. Likewise, if you’d like me to expand on any point mentioned above, please say so in the comments.

So you expect to have a bad night fighting before a tournament right? It’s a thing. It’s totally a thing. Oh, how I sucked today.

The day started well with progress on consolidating the three chapters. I nearly completed the second third of this, but I ran out of time and needed to do the day job. Another 20 minutes and I reckon I would have had it done. I’m hoping that this will be the difficult bit done.

And perhaps that’s where my first error for the day happened. I was so pleased with how all the writing progress is going that my mental focus was on completing the edits and not the fights ahead. This is a bit ironic given that The Climb has been nothing but swordfighting these last couple of weeks, and now we’re days from a tournament…

But I was aware of this. It’s not the tournament yet and I don’t want to mentally wear myself out. So it’s totally fine if my head is in the book, 2 days out from tournament. In fact, I suspect a mental break from the fighting should hopefully refresh me for tomorrow and more importantly, Friday.

I’ve also been running errands for all the first timers. No-one had time to prepare them and so it’s been me that has sorted out bullet casings and school rapiers for them.

The day job is having its seasonal quiet at the moment, and after officially submitting holiday requests for my upcoming trips to Romania and Sweden, I found out that I still have huge amounts of holiday left. I normally take a huge block in May to go storm chasing and then just take long weekends. But because of the May bank holidays and the fact that I went for a shorter time this year, I find myself with about 3 weeks holiday still left.

So, I thought, don’t just take the day after Fightcamp off, take the entire week. One good week and I can have the edits done, and then be free for the rest of August. It seemed the perfect plan.

Except I think I missed my shot. The next couple of weeks are going to be incredibly busy and it’d be a struggle for the team to lose a man. As a last minute thing, I understand but I am a little bummed as I would really like to get these edits done and back to the agent. At least I got Monday off, so I don’t need to panic about grocery shopping for next week.

Which is why, I guess, my head was firmly in book space for the rest of the day, before I went on to training.

Tonight was a sparring night. I was late due to the day job, so even though I’d let people know I was a bit of a fluster anyway.

My first fight was a bit of sword & buckler against Fran. I think I fought well. I didn’t do a lot of sword & buckler on Sunday and so I felt doing some tonight would be a good plan. I seemed to fight well and people who watched said it looked impressive. I was feeling good.

Then I had a second fight, felt tired during it, and came away with a massive sugar low. I’m not sure whether what this was. It could have been after feeling ill yesterday my body hasn’t built up stocks of some nutrient or other, but I felt slow and lethargic.

Then I did some backsword (because, the initial effects of the sugar low seemed to have passed although I still felt weak). The backsword is heavy and I’m not used to wielding it. I keep over-swinging with it and ended up either with a deep bruise or a strain in my bicep.

This is not what I need in my sword arm. I’m hoping that a couple fo days rest and it’ll be back to normal.

Of course, this has me now worried that that because backsword is the first tournament, I’ll further injure it and then perform badly in rapier.

Everyone fenced well tonight. As I said, I think it’s amazing if you look at how we fought 2 years ago and how we fight now. Our beginners have better form than we did 2 years ago. Even the people who only recently joined my classes look like they’ve been fighting for years.

They fought really well, but aside from my first fight, I fought terribly. I do feel a bit out of shape at the moment, and I’m not sure why as my cardio and stamina is usually pretty good. At least I’m ‘cheating’ this year and staying in a hotel rather than camping. I’m hoping a good night’s sleep will work wonders for my performance come Friday.

But seeing as a bad night fighting before a tournament is commonplace. I keep telling myself that these fights will not be ranked and so there’s no pressure. But I’ve consistently been getting into quarter-finals in one discipline at events so there’s a little pressure on myself.

Let’s hope I’m able to bring the Fire and Fury come the weekend.

If you want to follow more of my journey, then be sure to check me on my social channels. Likewise, if you’d like me to expand on any point mentioned above, please say so in the comments.

I’ve been feeling a bit under the weather today. There’s a gastric flu going around and it says something about how bad my stomach issues are when I’m not sure if I have a bad case of it or my stomach is just flaring up.

As a result I’ve felt a bit drained all day today. However, that hasn’t stopped me getting some work done, although not as much as I would have liked.

I’m continuing work on the consolidation of the 3 chapters into one. I’m now onto the second of those three chapters. I’ve changed some of the setup so it’s meant a bit of editing, and I’ve actually been surprised at how much my editing has improved in the last couple of months.

Up until now, I’ve pretty much been looking at my agent’s notes and unless I can find a compelling reason to ignore them, then I’ve accepted the changes. But as we get into the last 3rd of the book, so I’m editing stuff blind.

And it’s actually shocked me today just how ruthless I am. I seem to be taking the same level of editing forward with me. I’m actually shocked at just how much I’ve levelled up.

And whilst it’s not particularly easy, a lot of that is down to confidence. It feels a bit like the stabilisers have come off the bike and I’m riding by myself for the first time. It feels great, but a little scary.

As I say in swordfighting, it can be so difficult to spot your own progress. The same is true for writing, but today, editing this chapter I can see just how much I’ve improved. It’s actually perked me up a bit.

I also got a request today from a writer friend to be a mentor to him. I’m a little uneasy about this, not because I’m unwilling to help, but I’m not sure whether I’m at the stage where I can be an effective mentor. I’m also incredibly slow. I still have a friend’s script I promised to read that I’ve just not found time for.

But if you consider mentoring to be something more like Cake Club where we yell at each other with blunt honesty, then maybe I can help. I’m not sure what level they want to play at. And to be honest, until I have a book deal and sales figures I’m not going to know what level I play at. But I know if they want to get an agent and go for more traditional publishers, I think they are going to need to step up their game.

Writing is hard, and to those who don’t want to make it their profession, I’m kind but still honest. If someone wants to be professional, however, I’m brutally honest. I don’t expect any less back, and indeed my response on the 1st chapter redraft shows that those around me are not beyond telling me to my face when something doesn’t work.

I’ve read bits of their stuff and I think they are a decent writer. The question is whether they have the fortitude and resilience to step it up a couple of notches. There’s also the question of how far do you go with critique? You have to give them harsh criticism but at the same time, you need to remember that this is their book, not “this is how I would have written it”.

It’s tricky but I take it that the little bits I’ve helped with in the past have been worthwhile enough that he thinks I can bring him value.

We’re going to sit down after Fightcamp and I’m going to go over his strategy. I suspect I’m going to get him to write a different book than the one he thinks he needs to write… but we’ll see.

I’d hoped to get some vlog editing done this evening, but feeling a bit run down with illness combined with good progress on the edits meant I never really got further than an actual clip.

I suspect that perfection syndrome is kicking in a bit as well. I want to make a truly epic swordfighting montage, and apply slow motion and music and colour correction to it, but I think I’m worried that the result won’t end up like the idea I have in my head.

I need to get over that and be prepared to suck. At least the daily vlogs did not give me time to be precious.

But, I’m OK with not making progress on the vlogs given that I feel I’ve made significant progress on the edits. I might not have edited a huge bunch of words, but the level of my editing has massively improved and I feel confident that the last chapters will be brought up to the same standard as the first two thirds of the novel.

There’s still a mountain of work to do but I do feel like I’m starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

If you want to follow more of my journey, then be sure to check me on my social channels. Likewise, if you’d like me to expand on any point mentioned above, please say so in the comments.

By rights I should be writing about the chapter consolidation work I did today. I should write about how I paired down some of the emotion whilst trying to still have the same impact as previous drafts.

I should also be stressing over the next part of this new chapter. I should tell you about the opening of one of the chapters I’m consolidating and how I love it. How that chapter goes a bit deeper and talks about the nature of fear. How it’s almost a miniature essay.

I would worry about whether it was a darling that needed to be murdered or an essential part of the novel that needed to remains. But if so, how much?

I should be stressing over this chapter consolidation. I should be telling you just how much hard work it is and how I find it impossible. I should be in meltdown

But I’m not. There’s a reason why, and it might be a good thing. It might not be.

I’ve come across this notion of what I’m calling positive distraction over the last couple of weeks.

I think, as a writer, it’s so easy to get caught up in your own head, to worry and stress about details only to in the end go with your gut feeling.

I often feel like I don’t know what I should be doing with a chapter. I’ll sit and stare at it, wondering if a proposed change is a good idea or not. I’ll weigh up the pros and the cons, but mostly I’ll doubt myself. I’ll question my gut feeling, doubt my own logic. I’ll lay awake thinking about them. I’ll spend evenings doing nothing but stressing over the smallest of changes.

It makes the edits painful and slow.

One of the things that has become very apparent is that I need to be more confident as a writer. Instead of saying the same thing three different ways to cover all my bases, I should say it once and then not worry what people who misinterpret think. It’s a difficult change to learn.

But to do that, I’m wondering if I need to get out of my own head at times. I wonder if I should briefly consider the edits, weigh up the pros and cons, go with my gut and then move on.

I’ve noticed that a lot of the vloggers I’m watching seem to like positive distraction. In the case of the athletes, it’s a way for them to stop think about their performance in a sport and worry about video editing and social media instead.

Now some of this, no doubt, is lead either by sponsorship duties or commercial ventures. And a lot of this work is about their sport so it is relevant. But I don’t think the vlogs are going to help them become better athletes. Perhaps they’ll review the footage and make notes but as any sportsman will tell you, the real changes will come in the gym or on the track where you train.

But I do think they still serve a purpose. I think they act as positive distraction. I think they are a pressure value, a way to still be connected to their sport but get their head out of practise for a time, to instead worry about video production and color correction instead of form and performance.

In recent months I’ve found myself wishing I had a hobby. Whilst I don’t write fulltime (yet) I put a ridiculous number of hours into it. It, long ago, stopped being a hobby and something I took very seriously.

And I doing so, I miss doing things that I can suck at. I mean, I suck at a lot of things, but always there’s a drive in me to be the best. I love being the underdog. I love doing impossible things because I’m too stubborn to give up. But just sometimes I would like to do things where it didn’t feel like life and death if I was bad at something.

I nearly started drawing, but it was producing the daily vlogs for Chasepalooza that I really enjoyed. The videos had to be pumped out at speed, so there was not time to worry if they were good or bad. I enjoyed the challenge of producing them because I didn’t have any expectation on myself of their quality.

The swordfighting, I take a lot more seriously. It’s not at the levels of my writing yet, and I doubt I’d ever be able to be professional at it. But I’m driven to go up the rankings, to put in the time and the hard work needed and do the impossible.

Yet there are still parallels with the writing. There are patterns. And sometimes a problem in the writing can be solved by looking at the equivalent problem in swordfighting.

Maybe there’s just as much pressure to succeed as the writing, but it’s a slightly different pressure.

And so I’ve found that one can really act as the positive distraction for the other. If I have a big tournament I’m stressing about, I can focus on the writing. Likewise, if I’m making huge changes to the manuscript, to stop myself getting myself in knots over the edits, I can focus on the swordfighting.

Don’t get me wrong. I always knew that the end of July into early August would be incredibly swordfighting focused, but I’m surprised just how much editing work I’ve been able to do – mostly because it’s been a background task and I’ve not wasted mental resources.

I’m still not sure if it’s the right thing. Maybe the positive distraction will just lead to poor edits. But maybe it’ll strip out all the pointless worrying and stressing so that I make dispassionate edits that really serve the book and not the writer. Tournaments need me to be focused all day on the competition at hand, but maybe the edits just need me to be focused when I’m working on the manuscript.

Whichever it is, the edits have felt easier this past week, despite the magnitude of changes I’m making. Whether the edits are any good, still remains to be seen.

If you want to follow more of my journey, then be sure to check me on my social channels. Likewise, if you’d like me to expand on any point mentioned above, please say so in the comments.